- According to ten-year-old Hank Zipzer, there are many reasons why he shouldn"t have to do homework, e.g. every pen he owns has run out of ink, his thoughts are controlled by alien beings, he"s allergic to lined paper... Or could it just be that Hank has dyslexia and doesn"t want to look stupid? In this first book in the highly popular series, Hank"s ingenious plans to avoid doing his homework end in comic disaster as he accidentally floods his classroom.